All things Brandon Sanderson

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slippery said:
I don't think Odium is actually on Roshar, but one of the other planets in the Greater Roshar solar system. It has 3 planets, and the stuff with the Heralds actually takes place on a different planet in the system.
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Yep.
Braize = Damnation, which is in the Roshar system. According to wiki, there's another planet there called Ashyn, but we don't know anything about it really, other than rumors. So the Tranquiline Halls could have been from outside of Roshar's system originally. Maybe.
The way Odium describes his situation is "shackled". Presumably this is by the Oathpact. But the Oathpact has been weakened by the heralds breaking their vows, other than Talenalat. This could be why Odium isn't completely bound to Braize, and can appear on Roshar. Perhaps even he is only now able to appear on Roshar now that Talenalat is now on Roshar and there are no Heralds on Braize. The book characters speculate on this and think that they need to kill a Herald to send them back to Braize and halt the Desolation for the time being. I'm guessing that this won't work though, because plot, and because it delays the inevitable.

Also, since at the end, Moash kills Jezrien with that fancy knife (I had flashbacks to the Black Prism series and the blinder's knife, /nerd ), I would bet that Odium's current plan is to really kill (not kill in such a way that they return to Braize) all the Heralds, ending the Oathpact for good, and removing his shackles.

The fly in that ointment is that he already agreed to a trial by champions with Dalinar, and shardholders (Odium, Sazed) aren't allowed to break their word once given.
 
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Needless

Needless

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I'm only like 20% thru Oathbringer but fuck i still can't stand Shallan as a character, definitely better than she was but... reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
 
Reht

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Needless said:
I'm only like 20% thru Oathbringer but fuck i still can't stand Shallan as a character, definitely better than she was but... reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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I am kind of in the same boat except i like her even less now...
 
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Needless

Needless

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Yeah i think she peaked for me near the end of WoR, now she's going back downhill again very quickly
 
Springbok

Springbok

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He doesn't really know how to write female characters well imo, though he's gotten markedly better. My eyes glaze over when her chapters pop up

About half way through and enjoying it so far, but feel like it's a worse book than WoR in basically every way. Disappointing, hopefully the second half picks up. It's still good, but I guess my expectations were way too high. I powered through WoR in about 2 days, this released weeks ago and I'm still only halfway through
 
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Springbok said:
He doesn't really know how to write female characters well imo, though he's gotten markedly better. My eyes glaze over when her chapters pop up

About half way through and enjoying it so far, but feel like it's a worse book than WoR in basically every way. Disappointing, hopefully the second half picks up. It's still good, but I guess my expectations were way too high. I powered through WoR in about 2 days, this released weeks ago and I'm still only halfway through
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Yeah, i am kind of getting that feeling although i didn't have many issues with his female characters in Mistborn, etc.. I expected more of him (fin regards to female characters) after completing the Wheel of Time because it was such an improvement, but now i have just realized there was nowhere else to go but up from how badly Jordan wrote female characters.
 
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a_skeleton_03

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I am barely through it, I reread books 1 and 2 over last weekend. I loved the Dalinar flashback to the feast with some other highprince.
 
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Needless

Needless

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Thats the chapter im on atm i think, i just started it on the way to work anyway lol

Yep, that was a great one lol
 
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Rod-138

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What sucks is the characters in the book think there's not as much Shallan as there is since she's practicing appearing as others, but we fucking know its her.
 
Zyke

Zyke

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My biggest disappointment in the book was the relative lack of Kaladin chapters, which were always the most interesting and the most fun to me. I don't mind Shallan but she was way over-represented in this one. Dalinar chapters I found to be fairly solid overall, and I really enjoyed his flashback chapters as well.

Also not enough Kaladin super saiyan overall. That was my favorite scene in WoR in terms of cinematics, when he comes flying down and absolutely glowing in golden light.

Also do WoK and WoR count as spoilers anymore? Figure it's best to be careful but they've been out a while now.
 
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Zindan

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Zyke said:
My biggest disappointment in the book was the relative lack of Kaladin chapters, which were always the most interesting and the most fun to me. I don't mind Shallan but she was way over-represented in this one. Dalinar chapters I found to be fairly solid overall, and I really enjoyed his flashback chapters as well.

Also not enough Kaladin super saiyan overall. That was my favorite scene in WoR in terms of cinematics, when he comes flying down and absolutely glowing in golden light.

Also do WoK and WoR count as spoilers anymore? Figure it's best to be careful but they've been out a while now.
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It almost felt like Sanderson decided to take Kaladin down a couple notches, and raise up Shallan. I hope the next book doesn't go back to mopey Kaladin where all he can do it think about how he failed to save a certain someone, and then fail to say the right words.
 
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Ritley

Ritley

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Dalinar is far and away the person who grew most on power level this book. Will be interesting to see him use what he now has going forward.

For this being a Dalinar book it had way too much Shallan.

I still really liked the book overall, but there are obviously areas where Sanderson can improve
 
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Superhiro

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I'm 35% of the way in an just can't stay interested. How many times are we going to walk around the mountain-city doing pointless shit with Shallan, or listen to Dalinar complain about trying to unite the rulers, or read half assed Kaladin chapters sympathizing with the parshman.

I was something of a Sanderson hater during his early career because his writing seemed poor and he focused too much on creating cool unique magic systems. He fucking created his own laws of using magic in fantasy and named it after himself! I'd warmed up to him the last couple years with retreads, but this book is just lame so far. It doesn't help that I've been listening to his podcast a lot recently. He's got some underlying messiah complex that he's the savior of the fantasy genre. He's just a fucking Robert Jordan knock off with a panache for unique magic systems. It's beautiful that he finished writing the WoT, "saving" the series, and had now hit his own wall of midseries books that lack direction and have annoying female characters. I guess he has achieved his dreams of replacing RJ.
 
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slippery

slippery

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The middle of the book is slowish, but the last third of the book is mind blowingly insane imo.

I find Shallan way less annoying than most of you, if a little eye rolly at times. I like the humor she brings. Sure, who am I personality conflict was pushed too much, but the rest is simply trying to show the growth of her powers.

I thought the bridge four chapters were cute.
 
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Superhiro

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slippery said:
The middle of the book is slowish, but the last third of the book is mind blowingly insane imo.

I find Shallan way less annoying than most of you, if a little eye rolly at times. I like the humor she brings. Sure, who am I personality conflict was pushed too much, but the rest is simply trying to show the growth of her powers.

I thought the bridge four chapters were cute.
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That's another thing that annoys me about Sanderson. On the fucking podcast they talk about something they called "the sanderson ending" or something like that, I forget the exact phrase. How the novel goes along and then explodes right at the end. And its like its a good thing and a hallmark of his work. Bullshit. He drags along for 4/5 of a book with nothing going on, and then turns it up to 11 for the end to bring it all together. Try reading some Steven Erikson if you want to see it done well. Everything is written so that all the threads are being drawn to a single point, a convergence, when multiple story lines intersect and explode. You can see it coming, you don't know what is going to happen but you know something is going to happen, its building tension in the story as you wait for that moment, and when it happens its amazing. Sanderson is just, ho-hum drag you through most of a boring story and eventually I'll pack some exciting shit all together at the end.
 
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Qhue

Qhue

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I was expecting they would figure something about how the city works. I was also dismayed at the lack of Jasnah chapters as she's far more of an interesting character than Shallan. I was also expecting more Knights Radiant to show up. Even among those that did only Lift had any appreciable development.. At the end we even have two more random Radiants show up just so he can highlight the one type that is missing.
 
Malkav

Malkav

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Uh, if you are talking about who I think you are talking, the two "random Radiants" were

fucking Heralds
 
Zindan

Zindan

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Malkav said:
Uh, if you are talking about who I think you are talking, the two "random Radiants" were

fucking Heralds
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Yea, I think I may have misread or misunderstood that sequence, but it seemed to me that Dalinar saw or became aware of all those "radiants".... yet those two were somewhere -far- away?
 
Malkav

Malkav

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Zindan said:
Yea, I think I may have misread or misunderstood that sequence, but it seemed to me that Dalinar saw or became aware of all those "radiants".... yet those two were somewhere -far- away?
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They were close by. Ash just grabbed Taln from one of Amaram's army tents and was trying to get him away, they were crossing the Thaylen fields when Dalinar made his stand in front of Odium.
Later, after the battle, Jasnah caught them trying to get away through the Oathgate.
 
chaos

chaos

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I finished it finally last week. I didn't mind Shallan, I like the idea of her establishing an intelligence agency within the kingdom, and the personality stuff wasnt bad. She's a fucked up person. I think it would be worse to have some character who murdered both of their parents, likely led to their siblings being killed, and all the other terrible shit that has happened to her and just be solid.Now that she's reconciled some of that and her brothers are back I imagine she'll be a stronger character. I think Sanderson did kind of a head fake with Helleran, I expected some drama over that revelation and I guess it could still happen, but she seemed to address it pretty logically. I thought that was kind of a relief.

I thought the ending was pretty badass. The politics was frustrating, and Taravangian is fucking KILLING ME. Other than that, and wishing Kaladin had gone super saiyan at the end, I thought it was solid.
 
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